


devil in a midnight mass

by inkk



Category: Bandom, Guns N' Roses
Genre: Angst, Bipolar Disorder, Drabble, Drug Use, Feelings, Hotel Rooms, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Conflict, Trauma, axl needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkk/pseuds/inkk
Summary: It’s not like before.





	devil in a midnight mass

**Author's Note:**

> i just... i don't entirely know what this is or why i'm even posting it here. it’s really not my finest work & it came to life in the notes of my shitty ipod between the hours of 2-4am while i was in Australia, so... honestly it's a total mess of highly self-indulgent thoughts and not much more.  
> title from the billy talent song.  
> no time frame, but let’s say late eighties. obviously, absolutely nothing here is true or canon in the slightest.  
>  _**TW for sad boys snorting shitty cocaine and implied past trauma (CSA)_
> 
>  
> 
> _"A devil in a midnight mass / Killed the boy inside the man."_

+

 

It takes a couple hours and a few lines of coke before Slash finally shows up at the hotel room.

All things considered, the show had gone well tonight - they’d made it through every song with only minor mishaps, stayed cohesive throughout the set, and the audience had liked them. All the same, Axl had felt like he was drifting through it all. Behind all of the yelling and screaming and flailing, there’d been an unshakeable emptiness.

After they’d finished up the set, Axl had immediately pulled on a sweater, ditched everyone and left the venue as fast as he could. No one had stopped him.

He’s not sure if he wishes someone had.

The generic beige room is suffocatingly silent around him now, clashing with the cottony ringing in his ears. It brings a kind of restless lethargy, and a feeling like he needs to fight or fuck or just cut himself out of his skin in order to think about something aside from whatever is twisting between his lungs. He hasn’t showered in a couple days - his copper hair is getting stringy, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He’s tired as shit. The blow isn’t even helping, which makes the ache in his bones feel even worse. He should sleep, maybe, but decides against it.

The nightmares have made a reappearance lately. They torment him when he sleeps, to the point where he frequently wakes up panting and sticky with sweat in the middle of the night.

Not that he’d tell anyone.

_(It’s still God coming down to squash the sinners all over again, because it always is, except lately the blood and gore of the rapture is spliced with fragments of **scared so scared please stop don’t touch him like that don’t touch him don’t touch him** followed by cold, slippery visions of a uniform, cell bars and countless other half-dead brats, the entire building burning to the fucking ground with him still standing stuck inside.)_

Axl can’t tell if the drugs are helping or making it worse, so he does more anyways. By the time Slash inevitably shows up, it’s nearing three in the morning and Axl’s been sniffing lines on and off for a good while. He’s hunched over on the side of the bed when the door opens, sniffling pathetically against the drip in his throat. Any shallow amount of post-show contentment he may have started out with has long since faded away into a gutted, despondent feeling.

He finally registers the sound the door makes as it clicks shut. Slash stops near the foot of the mattress for a second, says, “You okay?”

His tone is a little tentative, as if he’s assessing whether Axl is about to get up and come take a swing at him or not. It’s a pretty good testimony as to how well-versed they all are in his bullshit by this point.

Axl just nods, grunting in vague acquiescence, and waves one skinny arm towards the half-empty bag of white powder lying a foot away on the bedside table. “Want some?”

Slash hesitates, then sighs and says, “Yeah.” He shrugs off his leather jacket, not bothering to remove those awful, dirty sneakers with the hole in the right heel before sitting down beside him, the bed dipping a little under his weight. He seems relatively sober - but then again, sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Axl focuses on the feeling of Slash’s thigh warm against his own. He idly watches him pour and cut the coke with expert motions, followed by the elegant, twisted line of his broad back as he takes the dollar bill in hand and leans forward to sniff both lines. He wipes his nose and shakes himself a little, massive hair bobbing. It’s oddly captivating.

Axl faintly hears himself ask, “Do you ever wish you were someone else?”

Slash turns to look at him with a peculiar expression. There’s a long pause. “Sometimes,” he says slowly, thumbing the end of the rolled-up bill between thick fingers. His voice is infuriatingly calm and level. “Why d’you ask?”

Axl is struck by a flash of impulse to grab him by that gigantic pile of hair just to get that goddamn fucking look off his face. Instead, he flops back on the bed and stares blankly up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. It’s like… I’m supposed to be grateful,” he announces dully. He can’t bring himself to look at Slash when he says, “We’re _making it_ , Saul. We’re fuckin’ rock stars. And I’m supposed to be happy about it.”

Another silence. “But you’re not?”

Axl examines a crack in the plaster above his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m happy that we are where we are, but I just wish--” He swallows and huffs a humourless laugh. “Whatever.”

Slash doesn’t say anything.

“Do you believe in fate?” Axl asks after a beat, “Or Karma? That all the bad shit happens for a reason? Like… I don’t know. A master plan, or something. The Hand of God.”

“Don’t do that.”

Axl casts Slash a sideways glance, peering up into the shadow of his face beneath his hair for a glint of eyes. “Do what?”

“The ‘God’ thing,” Slash says quietly. “I don’t want to talk about that. You only bring it up when you’re sad, and that usually ends with Duff scraping you off a bathroom floor in a puddle of your own vomit.”

Axl just stares at him for a long moment. “Fuck you,” he finally says.

Slash shrugs, unperturbed, and sets about cutting another line on the side table.

“I just mean that I wish things could have been different,” Axl continues. “Or better, or something. I wish I was—“ he cuts himself off. _Less fucked up. Less unloveable. Less angry all the goddamn time._

“Yeah,” Slash says, as if he can read Axl‘s mind or something. There’s a loud snuffle, and then he lies back on the bed, their shoulders nudging against each other as their legs dangle off.

“This is pathetic,” Axl intones listlessly. “We’re rock stars, and I’m sitting in a hotel room alone at three in the fuckin’ morning, doing shitty coke and whining about my life.”

“You’re not alone,” Slash points out. “I’m here. And everyone whines about their life, man. You just have more to whine about than most people. Nothing wrong with that.” His head lolls to the side so that he’s looking at Axl, who keeps his gaze fixed steadfast on the ceiling. “I think you’re entitled to complain a bit.” He exhales. “You’re right about coke being shitty, though. This stuff is useless.”

Axl snorts. “That’s what I get for scoring freebies from Steve,” he grumbles. “Fucker.”

Slash hums in vague agreement. A quiet settles over them before he asks, “Did anything happen this time? Y’know, to make you feel bad?”

Axl mutely shakes his head. He doesn’t have the words to explain it; that everything has been building back up inside of him for the past two weeks, that he has a headache, that four days ago he saw a random man who looked just a little too familiar and now he can’t stop fucking thinking about it. It’s not usually a particular event acting as a catalyst, but rather the culmination of a stream of continuous bullshit. It’s just like this. As if all of his emotions are fucked up and roiling inside of him and he’s helpless to do anything but try to hold on by his fingertips.

Fortunately, Slash is well-acquainted enough with his shitty antics to know not to attempt to push his lack of explanation further, and simply heaves a little sigh. “I take it the nightmares are back again, then?”

“Yeah.” Axl doesn’t see the point in denying it. He wears the evidence on his face in the form of dark circles everyday, anyways.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Slash rubs his eye and chuckles. “Right, right. God forbid we actually ever talk about _feelings_. That’d be gay.”

“Shut the fuck up, asshole.” Axl swallows. “You know it’s not like that.”

Slash dips his chin in a nod. “I know,” he agrees. He just watches Axl for a second before adding, “I’m a good listener, though. So keep in mind that I’ll be here when you finally run out of things to smash and have to resort to working out your issues like a normal person.”

His tone is light and joking, but Axl shifts onto his side and slugs him in the shoulder for it anyways. Hard. “Shut up, bitch.”

To his credit, Slash hardly even flinches. A white-toothed smile flicks across his features. “Okay.”

Axl half-glares at him. He’s not sure what he’s searching for, or what he wants to see, but Slash just looks the same as always; face partially covered by his dark hair, lips twisted into a grin, silver necklace lying loose against his broad chest.

They lapse into silence. Axl looks back up at the ceiling and tries to make a shape out of the crack. It could be a mouth, maybe. Or a pussy, if you wanted to be even more creative.

“You really can tell me, you know,” Slash says after a while, softly. “I mean that. I know with everything going on, we don’t really talk like we did before, but… Lately I feel like I never have a clue what’s going on in that head of yours.”

Axl glances over at him, then immediately averts his gaze. “Yeah.”

A snivelling, traitorous part of him wishes miserably that they were back on Melrose and La Cienega with the blinds shut tight, sitting in that room and saying everything. He wants to let it out. He wants to just start talking and not stop until he’s forced all the words out of his dumb fucking brain, but he can’t. Not really. If he opens his mouth too wide, he’s afraid his tongue will fall out.

It’s not like before.

“C’mere,” Slash says, holding out his arms, and of course Axl lets himself be pulled in.

It takes all of three seconds to obliterate the space between them until he’s clumsily lying on top of Slash on the bed, face half-smushed into his shoulder and their legs overlapping where their feet are still poking off the edge of the mattress. Slash’s arms come up to hold him, his hands gentle presences as they tentatively rest against his waist, always loose enough that he could get away.

“Are you okay?” Slash says. His voice is a faint, gentle vibration, but it still feels strong enough to rip everything apart.

“I’m fine,” Axl mumbles out. “Just tired. Haven’t been sleeping well.”

It’s not a believably statement in the slightest, but whether Slash takes him for his word or not, he lets it go. They lapse into quiet once more.

“I’m sorry,” Axl breaks the silence after a long moment of just breathing. He says it with his nose pressed into Slash’s collarbone, the words coming out a bit muffled against the fabric of his Skinny Puppy t-shirt. “I’m sorry for being such a fuckin’ temperamental cunt all the time, and for hitting you and breaking all our shit. And I’m sorry I’m always late for everything.”

Slash doesn’t say anything, but he lifts one broad hand to smooth over Axl’s dirty red hair, gently cupping the back of his head.

“I just hate this so much, sometimes,” Axl continues, squeezing his eyes shut. “I hate— I.” He swallows thickly. He’s _not_ about to fucking cry into another man’s chest. “I just wish it had been different,” he finishes weakly. His throat feels tight and scratchy, like he can’t get enough air.

_I wish I hadn’t been a mistake._

The hand on his skull shifts down to rub small circles between his shoulder blades, resting flat like an anchor. Their position isn’t comfortable, but Axl lets it transport him back to Hollywood Rose and the Shamrock and a dark basement, the terrariums and cat hair and the sound of little paws. He lets himself drift in it.

_I wish I wasn’t going to Hell._

“It’s okay,” Slash says.

_I wish—_

“I wish I had been bigger,” Axl finally says, forcing the words out like something’s clawing at his windpipe. “I wish I had— I wish I could have fought back.”

He sniffles and angrily rubs at his eye, huffing a sardonic laugh with his cheek pressed into Slash’s shoulder. “Jesus. So much for the most dangerous band in the fuckin’ world.”

Slash’s chest rises and falls gently, heart beating snugly up against Axl’s sternum. “It’s okay,” he repeats calmly.

He doesn’t have to say anything more. He knows Axl isn’t okay, and he doesn't know that he will be anytime soon, but for now it’s enough simply to be there through the worst of it. Tomorrow morning Axl will pick himself up and they’ll pretend this never happened. They'll go back to the bus and the shows and the fistfights. But right now, he just needs help breathing.

Slash rests his hand on Axl's back and leaves it there, fingers tracing circles.

They can rock n’ roll tomorrow.

 

 

+

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @[shotgunmessiahs](http://shotgunmessiahs.tumblr.com)


End file.
